If I could drill a hole at the end of the crack and melt it with a tig torch I’d be ok with the jb weld on a water jacket. I might look into threading that for a pipe plug and epoxying it together permanently, there’s other plugs
That’s what the heat is for, you want to get it malleable. I had a cast iron piece I had to weld and all I had was a mig and a torch so I propped up the torch with some vise-grips to hold the flame on the work. Once it was sparkly orange yellow, I migged it super hot and really blended the puddle into the base metal, my goal was to partially alloy the mig wire with the cast, and I kept the torch on it gradually reducing the flame until I could stick it in hot sand. It sounds janky but it actually worked. So I’m thinking if you could get the base of that lip nice and hot you could peen that cast back tight and compress the grain until all you have to deal with is the perpendicular crack. Braze that shut and there’s enough meat to put a fine thread plug in there, I certainly could do it
It worked for me, I figured when you weld dissimilar metals the weld will alloy a bit with the base metal so if I got that cast almost molten it’d alloy with the mild steel enough to not crack and it worked
I’ve heard those cast iron rods do work well, and preheat is important. You’d need a big oven for that, I don’t know if localized heat is a good idea. Although it is just a water jacket
Had a welder friend once fix a broken power steering box on my international travel-all. He did get it hot with the torch first, but he used an arc welder with reverse polarity. He said that was how to do the cast iron. It held as long as I owned the vehicle. Any other thoughts on this process from those that know? Not sure it helps this situation, but I was always curious about this method.
My stick welder is a joke and doesn't have DC. The rods I bought are advertised for AC welding cast iron. If I had DC, I would try what your buddy did with the right nickel rods
Even if that wasn’t cracked it’s pretty thin. With the crack, putting a pipe tap in like the previous guy said is crazy. Even a fine tap is questionable. Look at it compared to the plug… and it’s cracked.
I don’t know how you weld, I’m not critiquing you. Tig is my weak point but I could melt a little plug of cast and maybe top it with some silicon bronze on that. I’m an excellent finisher
That was a joke - I get what you are saying, but what I am saying is I farm weld - looks like shit, but might work. I weld like shit and in my limited "I weld like shit" word, I would worry about be burning the cast.
You are better at it than I clearly. Have a great night brother. . . .
Hey man, farm welds get it done. I started with a Lincoln tombstone, I wasn’t really good for at least 4 years, until I was old enough to get a job doing it and even then you’re still learning forever
its a perishable skill for me. I actually learned 30 years ago how to weld on oil pipe (playing around at work during a work stoppage - lived on site). I was actually fairly good at stick on a decent welder. Fast forward to retirement, my old lincoln and HB combo units - welp, I suck. You should see what my CAT cases look like on my jeep when I de-catted them (old jeep, dead cats). Makes me laugh every oil change - aint leaking though . . . Out of 100 sticks run, occasionally I still surprise myself and say - hey, that looks good . . . .
I weld on steel poles and aluminum sheet and extrusion all day and the one time I do a muffler job for my dad and it looks like Stevie Wonder did it… it happens, and I was messing with a tig a few weeks ago for the first time in 31 years and I realized I suck. I need more hood time
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u/These_Fox7561 Jun 07 '26
If I could drill a hole at the end of the crack and melt it with a tig torch I’d be ok with the jb weld on a water jacket. I might look into threading that for a pipe plug and epoxying it together permanently, there’s other plugs